Mission

The Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security (CrySyS Lab) is committed to carry out
internationally recognized, high quality research on security and privacy in
computer systems and networks, and to teach IT security and applied
cryptography at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. The lab also provides
consulting services upon request, including penetration testing (ethical
hacking) and technical assistance in computer security incident response. We strongly believe in
problem driven, project oriented research, hence we participate in R&D projects, where we
collaborate with industry partners and academic institutions, and maintain strong international
connections.

Associate Members

Dr. István Vajda

BME

Communities

CrySyS Student Core

The CrySyS Student Core is an invite-only group of
talented students who expressed strong interest in the field of IT security. Core members meet once a
week to expand their knowledge by discussing specific topics in system and network security, to
prepare for CTF competitions, to socialize, and in general, to have fun by spending time with other
geeks of similar interest. The CrySyS Student Core also plays a key role in the talent management
program of the CrySyS Lab, which includes the creation of challenges for the annual CrySyS Security
Challenge.

Interested to become a Core member? Prove your talent by scoring high at the next
CrySyS Security Challenge (organized in the
spring semester every year) or impress us in your semester project! If you don't feel qualified yet, but
want to invest some work to get better, then join our
IT Security Bootcamp!

Alumni Network

The CrySyS Alumni Network consists of those 100+ persons who did their diploma or PhD projects in the
CrySyS Lab. The following PhD graduates are distinguished alumni who received the CrySyS Steel Ring
which has the lab logo and the date of graduation graved in it:

Dr. Gábor Pék, CTO of avatao

Dr. Gábor Gulyás, post doctoral researcher at INRIA, France

Dr. Áron Lászka, post doctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, USA

Dr. Vinh Thong Ta, Lecturer in Computing at the University of Lancashire, UK

Members of the !SpamAndHex hacker team are also part of our
Alumni Network. The !SpamAndHex team has grown out from the CrySyS Student Core and became one of the
best CTF teams in the world. It won iCTF 2014, the largest CTF organized specifically for universities,
and it was among the 15 teams that qualified for the DEFCON CTF Finals, the most prestigious
professional CTF in the world, in 2015, 2016, and 2017. The team was in the top 5 teams in the
world ranking by CTFtime.org in 2015.

Godfathers of Duqu

We are probably best known about our contributions to the discovery, naming, and analysis of the
Duqu malware.

It all began in September 2011, when a European company sought our help to investigate a security
incident that happened in their IT system. During the investigation, we discovered a new malware
that was unknown to all mainstream anti-virus products, however, it showed striking similarities to
the infamous Stuxnet worm. We named the new malware Duqu, and we carried out its
first analysis. Our
findings led to the hypothesis that Duqu was probably created by the same people who developed
Stuxnet, but with a different purpose: unlike Stuxnet, whose mission was to attack industrial
equipment, Duqu was an information stealer rootkit. Nevertheless, both pieces of malware have a
modular structure, and they could be re-configured remotely from a Command and Control server to
include virtually any kind of functionality. Later, we also identified the dropper of Duqu, which
led to the discovery of
a zero-day Windows kernel
exploit. The story and our results received intensive
press
coverage at that time.

Since the discovery of Duqu, we have been involved in the analysis of other targeted malware
campaigns, including Flame (2012), MiniDuke (2013), TeamSpy (2013), and Duqu 2.0 (2015). More
information is available on our blog site at blog.crysys.hu and on our
research page.

Spin-offs

Tresorit

Tresorit was started as a student project in the CrySyS Lab and
it evolved into a spin-off thanks to the talent and devotion of the students, István Lám and Szilveszter
Szebeni, who designed the Tresorit architecture. Tresorit is a cloud based encrypted data storage system
that allows for secure sharing of information within closed user groups. In Tresorit, data is encrypted
at the client side before it is uploaded into the cloud, hence, users do not need to trust the cloud
storage provider.

Avatao

Avatao is an online e-learning platform for IT professionals
offering custom-tailored learning paths and detailed analytics about the learning process. Avatao helps
users acquiring desired skills by guiding them through a series of hands-on exercises and challenges.
Currently, Avatao focuses on providing IT security related challenges at all levels and in multiple
sub-domains.

Ukatemi Technologies

Ukatemi Technologies was founded by members of the CrySyS Lab
with the mission of addressing the problems of targeted attacks in cyber space. Targeted attacks often
use advanced methods, they aim at compromising high profile targets, they are stealthy and persistent,
and therefore, difficult to detect and mitigate. Ukatemi provides advanced threat mitigation
technologies, including threat intelligence services, custom testing of anti-APT tools, technical
assistance in computer security incident response, and advanced malware analysis.

IT-SEC Expert

IT-SEC Expert is a non-profit company specialized in industry oriented research and training in the
field of IT security.